The Core Knowledge Blog

UFT, that is.

By now you’ve heard the news:  Teachers at two KIPP charter schools in the Big Apple have voted to join the United Federation of Teachers.  It’s a big deal in the charter school world, since the charter movement, per the New York Times, “has long sold itself as an alternative that is not hamstrung by union contracts and work rules.”  Indeed, it was less than a week ago that KIPP’s founders were describing in a Washington Post op-ed the importance of their ability “to hire, fire and reward principals and teachers based on their students’ progress and achievement” and calling for giving “this same power to all public schools.”

“A union contract is actually at odds with a charter school,” Jeanne Allen, executive director of the Center for Education Reform, tells the Times.  Tout le blogs are weighing in.  Eduwonk parses the word “actually” in Allen’s quote.  “’Actually’ is the wrong word there.  The more accurate way to say that would be, “could be,’ writes Andy Rotherham.  “Why?  Well one example is the unionized and highly successful Green Dot Public Schools, another is KIPP Bronx, which has been unionized for some time.”  Fordham’s Flypaper says the move is “not a complete surprise.”

This movement away from zero-sum competition toward collaboration is positive, if it is done in a fashion that respects the essential operational freedoms that make charter schools successful, which include liberating schools in such areas as personnel, budget, and curriculum. Additionally, these partnerships need to emerge through a voluntary process based on mutual respect, as opposed to being foisted upon the charter school community by the state. State law should encourage partnerships, but not force them.

CER’s Jeanne Allen is having none of it, going after the UFT/AFT on Edspresso and asking “what campaign was hatched to convince so many KIPPsters that a regulatory environment would be preferable to the freedom they now enjoy.”  Says Allen:

The UFT – and its parent, the AFT – has been duplicitous in its support of charters. They often send in loyal teachers to cause dissention, as was the case across the water in New Jersey with successful charters such as the Rutgers-based LEAP more than a year ago. “Don’t you think we work too long for this money?” they ask innocently, and with a tenuous economy and fear in the hearts and minds of anyone who relies on a job for basic sustenance, drinking the union kool-aid may have been a bit easier for the NYC KIPP folks than others might have imagined.

At Edweek’s Teacher Beat, Vaishali Honawar calls it “a fairly big feather in the teachers’ unions’ let’s-organize-charter-schools cap.”  Gotham Schools’ Elizabeth Green has the letters the KIPP charter school teachers wrote to their bosses, KIPP colleagues and parents explaining their decision to unionize.

The larger question to be answered is what impact, if any, will this have on the halo effect KIPP enjoys in ed reform circles.  Sherman Dorn points out “unionization is usually driven by material and also by other considerations that motivate people to sign pledge cards: wanting to be treated decently on the job, having conditions likely to foster success, etc.”  Dana Goldstein at the American Prospect picks up thread. 

If schools like KIPP produce teacher burnout with their long days and high demands, then maybe that isn’t such a problem, the thinking goes. Maybe teaching is a profession for whip-smart folks in their twenties without families, not for tired middle-aged people who need flex-time. But what happened in Brooklyn is that the very young teachers in question disagreed. They said they were concerned about high turnover and thought it was hurting students. They want their profession to be sustainable and see unionization as a way to get there.

“But whatever happens, this is an important testing ground for the idea that the dueling corners of the education reform debate will accomplish most if they work together,” Goldstein concludes.